When I was five years old, my grandfather bought me a guitar. I thought it was a toy, but it didn't take long to learn otherwise. He was dead serious about teaching me and I didn't want to learn. This was not new to him as he had taught my dad in much the same way. My dad was quoted as saying, "You can make me do it but you can't make me like it."
Grandpap called me over into his studio, and of course I argued, but admittedly I was a bit curious. He called me "Friend" as he always did. It was one of the funny little eccentricities that made him special. Whenever I showed up at their house for anything, he always proclaimed, "Well, Hiya Friend!" I don't remember my first few lessons, but I remember liking the learning process. Probably because progress comes fast and easy at the beginning. I remember something out of a beginners book called "Two String Polka" being one of my favorite first songs to play. I was gonna be a pro in no time!
Fast forward a couple years and it wasn't so much fun. As I got better at playing, the lessons got harder. So I began plotting to escape them and my grandfather. I began trying to avoid my lesson times and look forward to the day of the week we weren't with that set of grandparents. My sister and I stayed with them after school and over the summers until one of our working parents picked us up at 5:00 PM. My grandfather was done work at 3:00 PM and would wrangle me soon after he got home for my 3:30 lesson.
My escape strategies grew more complex and kept escalating for a number of years, although I don't ever remember any strategy working. This man had more patience and persistence than Jesus H. Tap-Dancin' Christ. I occasionally resorted to tantrums, and these were serious tantrums. He should have killed me, but he didn't. Like all good parents he waited until I tired myself out and I gave up.
One time I ripped apart his music studio. I ripped the music stand clean off the wall and threw everything I could move. Another time I remember taking a bag of my own toy cars and slamming them with all my might into the ground, smashing most of them to unrecognizable microscopic shreds. I even kicked in the dashboard of his car one Thursday when he picked me up from my other grandparents house on a day I was supposed to be free from the torment. It was a mid 80's El Camino. Silver with a maroon dash. I kicked the shit out of it, cracked it and screamed at the top of my lungs as he drove stoically back to his house where I would eventually calm down and come to grips with the inevitability of the lesson.
He never seemed to get upset, which made me even more mad. Even during my worst tantrums he just waited me out. One day he made a two-page list of all the bad shit I did. He told me he was going to save it and give it to my dad later or something. I thought he might use it as evidence in future murder charges against me. Whatever he did with it would certainly be blackmail material.
He also taught my sister to play guitar, although she employed a completely different tactic. She was known as "Sweetie-Pie". She tried to out-patience him. She would sit with her guitar on her lap and not move. No matter how much he prodded her or talked to her, she did nothing. She wouldn't talk, she wouldn't play, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't squirm. She sat with a detached look on her face as if she were a stone. It really was something to behold. She would eventually break too, but not for lack of effort.
I was more proactive than she was. When I couldn't find the energy to tantrum, I used my powers for scheming instead. I used every excuse in the book with him. "I'm swimming - I can't come in now". "I'm watching cartoons - they demand my attention". "Sorry, I fell out of a tree and broke my pickin' hand." Or the ever popular, "I've gotta do my homework." This, of course, was a lie and he knew it. I don't think I did any homework from kindergarten through high school, but that didn't stop me from trying to use it to get out of those lessons.
It wasn't all bad though. Somehow through all my resistance he managed to teach me to play the guitar. One day he offered me a cookie out of the secret cookie drawer before my lesson and I ended up having a great lesson that day. So each day after that we went to the drawer for a Keebler Fudge Stripe cookie. I could stick my finger in the chocolatey hole and eat around it, hopefully procrastinating long enough that my grandfather would get tired of waiting and find another victim. My sister Erica, cousin Stephanie and I were all in this boat together, not unlike guitar camp POW's. We all sat together around the holidays and played Christmas songs and sang together. Somewhere there are cassette tapes he made of those sessions. Although we made the best of it we kept scheming.
After he retired they moved to a smaller house on the other side of town. One day, when I was about 14 or so he simply walked up to the top of the stairs where I was watching TV, rested his arms on the railing and started singing, "Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me..." I was so comically surprised by this approach that I could do nothing but laugh, and I went without a fight. In my mind we had a great time that day, just playing guitar and singing together.
During those later years he was not in the greatest of health. Our lessons were few and far between and could only happen between his stays in the hospital or the busy schedule of a 16-year-old boy with a car. One of the last lessons I clearly remember having with him was wonderful. We played all the songs he had taught me over 10+ years. We had real fun. I remember enjoying playing for once instead of dreading the lesson. I walked away from that lesson thinking that I would like to do it more. As usual, Life had other plans for us.
We were visiting him in the hospital one night, as he had a history of heart trouble. I don't remember specifically why he was in the hospital this time. I do remember Uncle Ron's Cavalier Z24 breaking down on the parkway that night while going to visit him. I also remember the end of the visit vividly. I was the last person to shake his hand and say goodbye that night. He looked different and scared somehow, even though I wouldn't realize it until later. He shook my hand and said, "I can't go to heaven yet."
"Why not?", I asked.
"Well, because I don't know how to play the trumpet, and St. Peter only takes trumpet players." We chuckled unknowingly.
He died later that night of further heart complications. The family all came back to their house to comfort my grandmother after the last traumatic visit to the hospital. It was 2:00AM and I really didn't know what to do with myself while the adults made arrangements. I headed down and picked up his guitar. I don't remember what I played, but I know it was somber and beautiful.
I was a jerk to him, yet he managed to give me a lifelong gift. My dad and I now say that he did make us do it, and he did make us like it.
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